Impact of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Coral Communities Is Deeper and Broader than Predicted

Credit: Fisher lab, Penn State UniversityA new discovery of two additional coral communities showing signs of damage from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill expands the impact footprint of the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The discovery was made by a team led by Charles Fisher, professor of biology at Penn State University. A paper describing this work and additional impacts of human activity on corals in the Gulf of Mexico will be published during the last week of July 2014 in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The footprint of the impact of the spill on coral communities is both deeper and wider than previous data indicated," said Fisher. "This study very clearly shows that multiple coral communities, up to 22 kilometres from the spill site and at depths over 1800 meters, were impacted by the spill."

EPA: BP must use less toxic dispersant

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a directive requiring BP to identify and use a less toxic and more effective dispersant from the list of EPA authorized dispersants. Dispersants are a chemical used to break up oil into small droplets so that they are more easily degraded.

The directive requires BP to identify a less toxic alternative – to be used both on the surface and under the water at the source of the oil leak – within 24 hours and to begin using the less toxic dispersant within 72 hours of submitting the alternative.

Caution required for Gulf oil spill clean-up

Credit: US Coast GuardWith millions of gallons crude oil being spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the focus now is on shutting down the leak. However, in the cleanup efforts to come, "extreme caution" must be exercised so as not to make a bad situation even worse, says a leading bioremediation expert with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

"The concentration of detergents and other chemicals used to clean up sites contaminated by oil spills can cause environmental nightmares of their own," says Terry Hazen, a microbial ecologist in Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division who has studied such notorious oil-spill sites as the Exxon Valdez spill into Alaska's Prince William Sound.

Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

Rig on fireA massive explosion occurred at 11 p.m. EST on Transocean's Deepwater Horizon oil rig, operated by BP, in the Gulf of Mexico. According to initial reports as many as 11 people are unaccounted for. Search and rescue operations are underway.

From data available, this oil spill could easily be one of the worst in the last few decades - with a potential of causing more damage and destruction to environment and marine life than the Exxon Valdez in 1989